Adam’s freewill disobedience was to lead ultimately to a fuller knowledge of God and of his standards of right and wrong. The tree of which he was forbidden to partake was “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” It followed that having partaken of this tree he would gain the knowledge implied by its name, even though in the process he would need to suffer and die.

After both Adam and Eve had partaken of the forbidden fruit, the Lord said concerning them, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.” (Gen. 3:22) This does not mean that the forbidden fruit had some magical effect upon our first parents, enabling them at once to have a full knowledge of good and evil.

We think the Lord’s statement means, rather, that because of disobedience man was now destined to know both good and evil, and that he was to gain this knowledge through experience. Thus, the education of our first parents soon began. They were driven out of their garden home into the unfinished earth to die. They were to be plagued with all sorts of unfavorable elements spoken of as “thorns” and “thistles” which the earth would bring forth to them, and against which they would have to struggle until in death they would return to the earth from which they were taken.

God designed that our first parents should generate an entire race. God knew that in order for Adam’s children to really know him and have a true appreciation of his standards of right and wrong they also needed to learn by experience the terrible results of disobedience. He therefore allowed all of Adam’s offspring to be carried into death with him. Paul wrote, “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men.”—Rom. 5:12